Welcome to Insurance Company News

By
ArkLaTex News

INTRODUCING INSURANCE COMPANY NEWS: InsuranceCompanyNews.com and its sister online publication, ArkLaTexNews.com, were many years in the making and launched under the direction of Executive Editor Randa Thornton-Mason (see biography below) on May 4, 2019. The concept was initially developed in 2015 with the idea of establishing a news organization for the ArkLaTex region including Northeast Texas, Southwest Arkansas, North Louisiana and Southeast Oklahoma.

OUR CHALLENGE: The ArkLaTex has a population of more than 1 million people, and the geographic area it covers is vast. Because the ArkLaTex region encompasses Four States, the insurance we pay is very different based on where we live. Nevertheless, we have many things in common. Our demographic and economic research for this progress showed that insurance - health, business, home, auto, malpractice and life - was one of the biggest concerns of our citizens. Indeed, many people in our area pay taxes in more than one state, and this makes the issue even more complicated. This research led to a critical question: How do we effectively cover insurance company news in a region as large and diverse as the ArkLaTex?

REACHING OUT TO THE COMMUNITY AND INSURANCE COMPANIES: To cover the ArkLaTex fairly and evenly, we decided to create local "hubs" to distribute news. This would allow us to produce "hyperlocal" or "very local" news for the important communities of our region and then collect the issues related to insurance on InsuranceCompanyNews.com. At the same time, we will produce special, original reports affecting all of the ArkLaTex citizens relating to insurance. The goal is to better educate our populous on issues relating to insurance and insurance companies. An added benefit is that our effort could lead to significant cost savings to our citizens - money which can then be used locally to spur economic growth.

INSURANCE COMPANY NEWS AND THE WAY FORWARD: Our mission is simple: We want to provide relevant, interesting insurance company news and information for the citizens of Northeast Texas, Southwest Arkansas, North Louisiana and Southeast Oklahoma. We also want people in other areas of the ArkLaTex (and beyond) to learn more about local insurance professionals and companies in this wonderful region we all call home - while doing our part to promote local commerce and help people navigate with murky world of insurance companies with news they can use right now.

Randa Thornton-Mason

ABOUT OUR EDITOR

Randa Thornton-Mason has a lengthy history of community service and business activity in the Ark-La-Tex. Before coming here, she attended Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas and worked as a bank and corporate retail auditor. As the wife of a US serviceman, she was employed in Germany by American Express Bank. After making a decision to establish roots in the Ark-La-Tex, Mrs. Thornton-Mason served as PTA president for area elementary and junior high schools. An avid painter, she was also named Cultural Arts Chairman for Texarkana ISD schools. For more than seven years, she served as director for a local ministry with five buses that brought children from Texas and Arkansas to church services and functions. She also wrote a weekly newsletter column about her experiences. In business, Mrs. Thornton-Mason served on the Board of Directors of Central Mall for more than 15 years. She owned and managed a Christian bookstore for over two decades and owned a seasonal Christmas store for 15 years. She also held and operated a James Avery jewelry franchise for more than two decades until James Avery retired from franchising and she retired from business in the early 2000s. Mrs. Thornton-Mason later worked as a business development consultant to help international Christian bookstores in Europe achieve better marketing and product distribution. She also helped operate annual international conventions in Amsterdam. On the internet, Mrs. Thornton-Mason distinguished herself in the mid-1990s by becoming a full partner of a top national Christian retail website that still successfully operates today. Although she humorously describes herself as somewhat of a technophobe, she also helped create and finance other websites in the 1990s which were later acquired and merged with other companies. She looks forward to using her years of experience in business, community service, journalism and the arts to fulfill her new mission of bringing local news, information and increased visibility to our Ark-La-Tex region.